Prometheus and the Rings

The Cassini spacecraft looks across Saturn's rings and finds the moon Prometheus, a shepherd of the thin F ring.

Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers across) looks like a small white bulge near the F ring -- the outermost ring seen here -- above the center of the image. See PIA08397 and PIA07712 to learn how the moon perturbs the F ring.

Kinky, discontinuous ringlets can also be seen in the Encke Gap of the A ring on the left of the image. See PIA12650 to learn more.

This view looks toward the southern, unilluminated side of the rings from about 1 degree below the ringplane. Four background stars are visible.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on January 1, 2012. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers) from Prometheus. Image scale is 7 miles (11 kilometers) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute